What Joe Morgan wrote in his letter is not a new sentiment for him. If he wanted to speak out, as is his right, the Hall of Fame should have gently advised him to do it on his own time. But perhaps the Morgan letter is better viewed as the latest and most honest step in the Hall’s apparent campaign to minimize the chances that Bonds and Clemens could be elected.

In a simpler, less-juiced time, these two would have been some of the easiest shoo-ins for the Hall in their first year of eligibility, which was five ballots ago. However, PEDs left a taint on statistics-obsessed baseball that may be worse than any other sport. I know of no baseball fans outside of San Francisco or Barry Bonds' living room who think that he would be the home run king without drugs.

Bonds was a slim, athletic, brilliant hitter in his early MLB days in Pittsburgh. He seemed to grow three extra sets of shoulders after he got to San Francisco. Had he not "miraculously" sprouted all of that muscle he'd already be in the Hall, most likely acknowledged as one of the greatest hitters of all time, but probably not as the home run leader.

As the Times article says, this is the Hall's "most honest step" in this saga. The approach thus far has been simply to not talk about it, which just makes the elephant in the room gain about a ton a year.

A lot of people are having a bad week this week as the sexual harassment bloodletting continues. One such person is writer-actress-producer-activist Lena Dunham, who recently defended a former writer on her show "Girls" after he was accused of rape.